Domínguez: Argentina will not say 'yes' to everything

Lower House Chairman Julián Domínguez speaks during a political rally in the Buenos Aires province City of Mar del Plata.

The head of the Lower House Julián Domínguez responded to opposition figures that questioned the government’s legal strategy against creditors that refused Argentina’s 2005 and 2010 debt swaps. “Would saying yes to everything be a good way to negotiate?” the Kirchnerite leader wondered.

“They say we negotiated badly but what would be to negotiate fine? Saying yes to everything? This is not paid by those negotiating, it is not the President (Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) who pays for it, nor political leaders; this is paid with the work and production of the Argentinean people,” Domínguez said today in statements to media.

“That is easy, to hand in everything. We always go for the most arduous path,” he stressed in remarks aligned with President Kirchner who yesterday announced Argentina will not default on its restructured debt and that will comply with all its debt payments.

Domínguez pointed out the current dispute against vulrture funds suing the South American country over its defaulted bonds more than a decade ago, was not a problem that belonged to the Kirchnerite administration which was indeed resolving all the “scandalous negotiations” reached before ex late president Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003.

“Amid each negotiation there is the job, the health and the education of the people of Argentina,” the MP affirmed questioning as well the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to not hear Argentina’s appeal against holdout investors led by hedge funds Aurelius Capital Management and NML Capital Ltd, a unit of billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corporation.

For Domínguez, it was “no chance” that the ruling came after Buenos Aires reached an agreement with the Paris Club group of creditors, defusing disputes at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and clearing the scenario for foreign investments.

“The years to come are of growth and development for the national economy. How the current agreement is worked out will define how Argentina will grow.”